


The Night Dances

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: Banter, Bathing/Washing, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Humor, Kid Fic, Married Couple, Married Life, Masturbation, Moving, Pizza, Series, Sharing a Bath, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:42:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: A sequel to "Morning Song" and "Two Lovers and a Beachcomber By the Real Sea."Laverne and Lenny prepare for their move to Florida, and the act of packing everything away brings up memories - unpleasant, sweet, and sensual in turn.
Relationships: Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	The Night Dances

**Author's Note:**

> Read Morning Song [Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29530848) and Two Lovers... [Here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29620194)

“Okay, living room’s done,” Lenny said. He dusted off his big hands and shoved the last cardboard crate into the corner of the room, one more thing to toss into the U-Haul they’d rented for the long Florida move the next morning.

“That’s everything, then,” Laverne said. She wasn’t counting the blankets on the bed, or the clothing on their backs. Those would come later on. 

Joey gave a little yawrp beside them, waving his hands from his playpen, rolling over and rocking on his hands and knees. He’d grown by leaps and bounds, inching closer to being ready for solid food, and he was trying to learn how to crawl and pull himself up, alarming his parents out of their wits. While Laverne and Lenny got the apartment ready, he’d been playing with a bright pink oversized stuffed teddy bear, a gift from Shirley and Walter they’d gotten a couple of months before he was born – bought and delivered back when Shirley was convinced that Joey would be a Josephine. 

Laverne sat on the floor beside her son and let out a relieved sigh. Lenny, meanwhile, headed to the phone – which, unlike the power, was still connected. 

“I’ll order pizza and pour some Pepsi,” Lenny said. ”You rest.”

“Len, I ain’t a weakling.” She had powered through nine months of pregnancy and nearly six months of child rearing, and the results had been…well, she was still recovering. 

They’d only been living together and in their apartment for a year and change, and yet it felt like a home to her. But then, every time Laverne left a home, it had been with a sense of bittersweet joy. When she’d left New York for Milwaukee, she’d refused to speak to her parents for a week; when she’d moved in with Shirley, her father had been overbearing and full of advice. She and Shirl had packed their Milwaukee apartment through tears, and when Laverne had gotten the San Francisco promotion she’d been a nauseous, hormonal mess as they moved out of Laurel Vista. At least, with any luck, Joey would have the privilege of growing up in one single Florida neighborhood, in the same house, with the same set of friends. Though constant motion really hadn’t stopped Laverne’s whole life from following her from Milwaukee to New York and California, she thought wryly.

Watching Lenny as he ordered their pies - leaning against the wall, his fingers tangling the cord – she wondered at how fast everything was moving. A good kind of fast, she thought to herself. Weirdly she’d never been more sure of anything in her life than she’d been about their marriage and eventual conception and raising of Joey.

“…And Bosco and chocolate-covered peanuts on the other side…yeah, this is the Kosnowski place…gee, I didn’t think I was that memorable. I must have that kinda face…yeah, the kid’s fine…no, actually, we’re gonna be moving soon, so this is a big celebration…Why?”

_“Because,” Laverne had told him, his hand rubbing circles against the roundness of her belly as they spooned together in the dark on the couch watching Godzilla blast fire at Biolanthe, “we got six more months to worry about how this is gonna work out. My job’s enough to let us get by, and I get two weeks when the baby’s born, so you won’t be alone with the baby at first.”_

_“But what if I drop it?” Lenny asked. “They’re all squashable! I’ll sit on him by mistake and…”_

_Laverne turned around in his grip, the blue couch’s cushion cradling her hip in an unexpectedly uncomfortable way. “Len,” she said calmly, “you’re not gonna sit on the baby. You’re not gonna LOSE the baby. You’ll be fine. It’ll all be okay.”_

_He frowned at her. His blue eyes showed his innate innocence, innate lack of self-worth. This was what had stopped her from pursing a relationship with him before – she’d liked her men effortlessly confident before Lenny. Sometimes he could come out with great blasts of confidence – his determination to be a millionaire, his declaration that she could bunk with him anytime “and that’s a promise, babe.” Proposing a threesome between the two of them and Shirley when they’d come back from a weekend at the reserves, which Shirley immediately rejected. But then there was the Lenny who was afraid to touch her when she was sad, the Lenny who worried that everything he did would lead to her further misery. “How do you know?”He asked._

_“Because I know you,” she informed him. “You were pretty good when we left you to babysit that kid – except for the whole giving away the baby part – and you’re pretty good with older kids. You’re gonna be a good daddy, Len.”_

_He snorted. “Yeah. As long as I’m half as good as Godzilla is to Gadzookie, then I’ll be okay.” He propped himself up on an elbow and looked into her eyes. “Why do you trust me so much, anyway?” he mumbled. “Last time you did I tried to run amok on you with a plunger stuck to my head.”_

_“Yeah, and I beat you up,” she pointed out. He looked downward in embarrassment, long metallic lashes so fair they read as pale pink in the dark. “I know my way around a boy like you…” She sing-songed._

_“Hey, don’t use our song against me!” he said, but the light was back in his eyes._

_“It’s half my song. And we’re a long way from the Royal Cactus at this point.”_

_He nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed, rubbed her belly again for good luck. “I have no idea what we’re gonna tell the kid about that.”_

_She smiled. “Shirley’s got it worse. She’s gotta explain Roxie. And the cake story.”_

_“Thanks for reminding me I almost saw my kid’s godmother’s tits,” he replied._

_Laverne couldn’t keep a note of jealousy out of her voice. “Yeah well, the good part is you didn’t.” Lenny burrowed closer to her and sighed. “Don’t be scared, Len,” she told him._

_“I ain’t. At least about the having-kids part as I used to be,” he said. “With other girls I used to think I didn’t want ‘em. Not after what happened with my own folks. But with you I want a whole football team. ‘Cause it’s you.”_

_His words were heavy, but they lightened up her heart as Godzilla rocked her off to sleep._

“It’s supposed to be here in ten minutes,” Lenny said, sitting down beside her with his legs folded, automatically reaching into the playpen and pulling their son out, sitting Joey on his knee. Joey squealed, his little hands reaching out for Lenny’s face – Lenny leaned forward, allowing him to explore – at least until Joey tried to pull out his eyelashes. “Ow! No!” Lenny said.

“Be nice, Joey,” Laverne said. Their son sat back and frowned, babytalking back. 

Laverne observed quietly – the same way Lenny watched her with Joey, a million feelings ricocheting around in her heart. She loved her husband; she loved her son. She was proud of the life they’d begun to cave out for themselves.

More importantly, Laverne missed sex with Lenny, no doubt about it. They’d crammed a lot of it into the first eight months of their marriage, and the physical demonstrativeness between them had never stopped, but they hadn’t had full-out sex since Joey’s birth even though her doctor had Okayed her for it.

Part of this, Laverne knew, was her own problem. She was still fifteen pounds overweight, her hormones were all over the place, and all of the weird side effects her OB/GYN informed her were perfectly normal postpartum slice of life still kept here away from the joys of the marital bed. Lenny, to his credit, had not been pushy about it – there were a million ways to satisfy a man without screwing him, and even if Lenny was the kind of man who needed her body to get off, he didn’t mind applying a little self gratification to the situation. Part of Laverne missed her old self – slim, laughing, tree-climbing and tomboyish, free to ‘go wild’ anywhere she so desired - but she had been thoroughly assured that things would get easier and her strength would soon return and she would be able to move through life without one part leaking and another part turning into the Sahara. She already felt better than she had the week Joey had been born. Once they were settled into the house and they began the process of introducing Joey to solid foods, she’d see how this new body of hers worked between the sheets.

All at once, Lenny leaned forward suddenly and kissed her cheek, his fingertips caressing her cheek and neck with the limb not holding Joey. “What was that for?” Laverne asked.

“I just wanted to kiss you,” he shrugged. “Did you want it on the mouth?”

“Maybe,” Laverne said. Lenny grinned and leaned forward. The kiss was sweet and tame, but it still kindled her blood – soon she scooted forward and got an arm around Lenny’s neck. They ended up kissing until Joey made discontented sounds. When Laverne glanced at the baby, he was making grabby hands, mirroring their puckering.

“You’re too little to be jealous,” Lenny said, but Joey kept up his squawky discontent. “Y’want one too?” he asked, and the baby turned around and made excited grabbyhands in his father’s direction. Lenny planted his lips against Joey’s cheek, and then let Joey seize him by the face and plant a wet kiss on his chin. Then he turned and made querulous noises until he ended up in Laverne’s arms, where he gave her a drool-laden kiss on the nose. 

It was slovenly and sweet, but like father, like son. Laverne kissed him back, and Joey blurted out his random patter, trying to communicate his excitement in preverbal bursts of happiness. She tickled him until he got a case of the hiccups and snuggled close to her collarbone. When Laverne looked up Lenny was watching them with those bright blue eyes of his. Then the doorbuzzer rang and Lenny silently volunteers to get up. The pizzas were there, and he paid for them at the door before carrying them inside.

While Lenny got to work dishing out their dinners, Laverne couldn’t stop her eyes from drifting southward to appreciate his other attributes while he slung plates and cups. Most of his best moves in that kitchen, after all, had not involved pots or pans.

_They were both total flops in the kitchen – this much Laverne knew and recognized. She knew how to make three things without burning them, and Lenny’s gourmet adventures usually involved offal and dessert sauces. Thus they settled frequently for takeout._

_She was junking the last of their Chinese leftovers when Lenny started talking about their plans for the evening. “I am done for today. Eight hours running around Redondo Beach trying to stop little kids from sticking their fingers into the ice cream is enough to take any guy out.”_

_“Aww, really?” Laverne pouted. “I was hoping we could have a little fun.”_

_“Believe it or not, I’m beat,” he retorted. “Tomorrow morning, though…” he grinned, then bit his palm._

_She shrugged, a wicked idea jumping suddenly into her mind. “Okay, I’ll just…enjoy myself.” Teasing Lenny was a lot of fun, because it was incredibly easy to make him blush, and because it usually resulted in his jaw dropping. Winking and wiggling his hips made his eyes fly wide open._

_He cleared his throat. “Gonna play solitaire?” he replied, squirming on the couch. He seemed to have some idea of what she was getting at but didn’t believe that this was really happening to him._

_“Nah, something a little more…finger-intensive.” Now he understood what she was getting at. She waited on his reaction – wondering how much of this she should blame on her need for him and how much to blame on the early stages of her pregnancy – which, when it wasn’t making her hork up her breakfast, was making her size up her husband like he was the blue plate special._

_To her surprise, he laughed. “You mean you’re gonna jerk off?”_

_“Yeah!”_

_“Right there in the kitchen?”_

_“Maybe.”_

_Then his voice took on a paternalistic tone. “Laverne, girls do not jerk off. I mean, whattya got to jerk?”_

_She turned her head, raising an eyebrow “You think girls don’t play with themselves?”_

_Lenny lifted his shoulders. “Well, Squig said…”_

_She rolled her eyes, knowing what was about to come out of Lenny’s mouth. Being in a sexual relationship with him often involved disabusing things he’d made up from half-heard whispers in locker rooms and adamant lies made up by Andrew Squiggman, some of them involving honey, lemons and ground-up moths. That was okay, she wasn’t about to give up._

_“Len, Len! Squiggy don’t know nothing about what girls do to themselves downstairs. Just ask Cindy Delgado from the old neighborhood.”_

_Lenny’s jaw dropped. “That’s a lie,” he said. “’Cording to Squig, he sent her to the moon!”_

_Laverne replied, “Unless the moon was the face of her watch she wasn’t seeing it that night.” Lenny let out an offended gasp on his best friend’s behalf. Laverne chose to distract him by sending the tips of her fingers down her chest to cup her breasts, halfway between showing them off and trying to figure out a way to hold her boobs that felt good instead of painful. “Don’t you wanna watch, Len?”_

_“Yeah,” he said. The words came out in a growl. “But I should be the one…”_

_“Lenny, sometimes you can just watch,” she told him. The shorthand being **you don’t always have to be the one making me come, sometimes I want to make you happy.** He sat back, watching, fascinated, as she kneaded her breasts. That felt nice. It felt better when she pulled her turtleneck off and unclasped her bra, releasing her breasts with a sigh. Most of the time she didn’t bother with them – nor did anyone else she knew – but she’d just come from an important meeting at Ajax, and she’d holstered her puppies and suffered for it._

_Lenny’s eyes were wide, his stare intense, and he leaned over the arm of the chair and watched her. Laverne had always liked it when men watched her strip – she’d never had any real scruples when it came to showing off her body, and Lenny was in love with it, with her. She touched her liberated breasts lazily, teasingly, staring right into Lenny’s eyes._

_“You’re the sexiest girl in the history of the world,” Lenny informed her._

_She snorted, plucked at her nipple, felt a thrill race down her own spine. “You’ve seen Rhonda,” she retorted._

_“You’re the sexiest girl in the history of the world,” Lenny repeated himself, and if she didn’t believe it he sat back, making the bulge in his jeans very obvious._

_“I got an overbite and a flat hiney,” she replied, “And anyway…”_

_“You could make me come in my pants just by kissing me,” he reminded her. “When’re you gonna start believing that I want you?”_

_When had his wanting her become such a huge deal? She’d spent so many years rejecting his praise that it had run off her back. It had landed a few times before – when he’d flattered her before taking her to a ball, when he’d given her love and praise without expecting anything back. The night they’d first made love – and gotten married – she’d absorbed it like rain, needed it. Everything that had led them to this little apartment in a very expensive town had been pure impulse, and yet it had been so right. But still, having love heaped on her somehow made Laverne squirm. “I dunno,” she said, covering up her insecurity with her natural sense of sass. “Why don’t you take it out and prove it?”_

_Lenny’s attempt at smoothly and confidently standing up and stripping off his jeans and boxers nearly landed him ass over teakettle on the other side of their coffee table. She gasped and reached for him but he settled back, pantless and shoeless and tangled up in his boxers. His cock slapped his belly, and she swallowed hard at the sight of it._

_Sitting down on the kitchen counter, she shimmied her miniskirt up past her hips – a gesture that was still comfortable in the third month of her pregnancy, but who knew how long it’d be before she started showing? Doctors, she reminded herself, and also reminded herself to start reading some books. Bell bottoms and prairie skirts were becoming the new fashion norm, but Laverne liked what minis did for her legs and butt and remained determined to wear them until she couldn’t. Lenny’s hand idly stroked his cock as he watched her. Playing with her tits, her panties on full display, Laverne moaned and stared right back into her husband’s eyes._

_“Is it still you jerking off if I suck on your tits?” Lenny asked suddenly._

_“Nope,” Laverne said. She rolled the nipples between forefingers and thumbs until it grew hard, then began to – extremely carefully – knead them. She stroked her own shoulders, neck, belly, flanks. This was really pouring it on but Lenny was practically drooling in her direction._

_Lenny groaned. “If I call you a tease will you stomp on my foot?”_

_“Only a little. And it ain’t teasing when you’re sitting there pulling on yourself.”_

_“C’mon Laverne!” he snorted. But his hand moved faster as she parted her own thighs and rubbed herself through her panties._

_Pleasure pooled in her belly and spread outward, like honey, through her limbs. She wanted to move slowly but, as always, she couldn’t stop herself from gobbling up a treat – and that treat could be anything from a Scooter Pie to an orgasm._

_By the time she pulled her panties aside and got to work on her clit Lenny was long and solid, hard as iron. His eyes were shut tight and his head tossed back, looking as warm and available as a blond from a pin-up book. Laverne closed her eyes to indulge in a fantasy, but all of her better sexual memories tangled up around Lenny. She worked her clit and he teased the head of his cock, and while she watched him, she remembered the time he’d bent her forward against the bathroom sink and she’d bruised his thigh in her release. That was what flowered the ache into joy. They began to tumble into sexual bliss – together but apart._

_“God, Len,” she groaned, limp and throbbing against nothing._

_“Laverne,” he growled. When she opened her eyes he was covered in strands and puddles of his own release. It was all over his favorite baseball shirt, and he was so going to be doing the laundry this week._

_But he opened his eyes, and all practical thoughts vacated Laverne’s mind. “Okay,” he said, still breathing like he’d run a marathon. “So maybe girls play with themselves. But there ain’t no way you can last longer than me!”_

_Laverne groaned and got off the counter, then dove onto the couch. “Watch me,” she said, and kissed him silent._

***

Laverne’s reverie ended with a plate of pizza held beneath her nose. “Come back to the mysterious land of Planet Pizza, we have food,” Lenny said.

Laverne snorted, took the plate and settled back. She chomped down a good five pieces of pizza between swigs of Pepsi and felt very satisfied, sending Lenny the occasional flirty look, dandling Joey in turn, helping him stack up his blocks. She must have been getting better at timing things, because as she finished Joey was fussing and reaching for her breasts again.

“I’ve gotta go wash ‘em,” Laverne said, thinking about the amount of sweat and dust she’d been doused in all afternoon. “Can you bring him to the bedroom?”

“Yep,” Lenny said. He was nearly done himself. Joey fussed as he picked the baby up. “I’ll get this away and on ice,” He indicated the pizza, of which there was very little left. That’d make a nice afternoon snack when they were somewhere in the southwest the following day.

Laverne thanked him and headed into the bathroom. It didn’t take long to find a towel and clean herself with it. She glanced at the little brown washcloth and smiled. These were part of the set Shirley had brought down with her when she’d flown in for a visit when Joey had been born. Her best friend had been enormously helpful those two weeks, and it had really been the last time she’d gotten to spend any time alone with her husband. Even if most of it had been spent bathing.

_Lenny slid into the tub without asking Laverne if he was welcome, which was the most ‘him’ gesture she could conjure. He grinned and held out a Pepsi. He also knew by now how to win her forgiveness._

_“Lenny, I’ve been washing in this water,” she said, as he reached for the soap._

_“I know, but I like my baths lukewarm,” he said. “And you’re way cleaner than Squig ever was.” She really didn’t want to know that. “Shirl’s watching Joey and Todd, said she’s gonna cook something for dinner, so we got time to wash up.”_

_Laverne smiled. “It’s been nice having her here all week, huh?”_

_“Yeah,” Lenny said. “Makes me wish Squig could come.”_

_“The war’ll be over sometime, Len.” Sooner, she hoped, rather than later. Laverne knew that someday the boys would return from overseas, and the conflict would conclude – but in her opinion it was too much waste, too many lives lost. Patriot though she was, she didn’t agree with what the war was about, and Lenny - who had dreamed of war and glory as a kid – seemed to feel guilty that he couldn’t contribute to the cause – and worse, didn’t agree with what was happening out there._

_“At least we won’t have to lie to your Pop about it anymore.” Laverne remembered abruptly that they were indeed lying to her Pop about Squig living with them in the city, so he wouldn’t get mad at Squiggy for dodging the draft – a request that was mainly Squiggy’s._

_“Yeah,” Laverne sighed. She swam over to him, through the soapy water. “And here we are, in a warm tub. All alooooone,” she teased. And then she rested her cheek against his chest._

_“Laverne,” he said, warningly, but her fingers were walking up and down his chest._

_She drained the Pepsi with her free hand, then set it on the floor and and sat back into his warm grip. “Y’know, I just realized something. There ain’t no reason one of us has to sit here, all flustered, with no way to get off. You don’t have no stitches going on down there.”_

_“I love the way you think, darling,” he groaned._

_Laverne just snorted, resting her chest against Lenny’s chest, and quite surreptitiously parted the suds._

She forced herself to think of much more innocent things as she entered the bedroom and took her son into her arms – packing away the memories this place stirred inside of her for later. Lenny sat nearby, on their bed with its blue sheets – the California King she’d bought when Shirley had moved out. 

Contented for a moment, she let Joey suckle at her breast and the world sweep itself wearily around them. This had always been a place of love for the three of them. Even when times were challenging.

_Laverne woke suddenly to a dark room and automatically she flew toward the travel cot they’d dragged into the bedroom when Joey had been sick. The past few days had been nothing but fear poorly concealed followed by trips to the doctor, whose calm, easy blandishments had done nothing to soothe Laverne. Carefully, she pressed her palm to Joey’s forehead._

_Relief almost made her legs buckle. He was as cool as a cucumber._

_And, she realized, smiling up at her. Laverne scooped the baby up and rocked him against her L-emblazoned breast. “Joey,” she chanted in relief, rocking him. “Joey Joey Joey.” He slept in her embrace, the natural sleep of a child who was tired and not ill._

_The bed squeaked behind her. Lenny’s eyes were wide, fearful, his hair a mess. “It’s OK,” Laverne whispered. “Fever broke.”_

_Lenny sighed his relief and held out his arms. She and the baby ended up in them, cuddled together.  
They’d survived their first familial crisis._

*** 

She didn’t notice Lenny was behind her, propping her up, until his arm came around her waist. He nuzzled her neck, and she nuzzled back.

“I’m gonna miss this place,” he said, tracing the curve of Joey’s cheek before letting him squeeze his index finger. 

“Me too,” Laverne admitted. “We’re gonna keep making new memories, but the ones we got here will always be special.”

“Yeah,” Lenny said. “And I still lasted longer than you,” he whispered.

“In your dreams,” she retorted. Then Joey tugged on her wrist, making her laugh, and breaking the spell.


End file.
